90% Of K-8 Schools In U.S. Have Joined ClassDojo, Making It Most Used Classroom Communication App

Company Beginning to Connect Classrooms with Ideas, Content and Services in Mission to Create Incredible Classrooms at Scale

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 1, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, ClassDojo announced a major new growth milestone: 90% of K-8 schools in the U.S. have joined, making it the most used communication app in K-8 classrooms. Used throughout the day as a place for teachers, parents and students to connect and share important moments, ClassDojo has quickly become the way schools across the country are building positive classroom communities.

"Our core belief is that education improves when classrooms improve," said Sam Chaudhary, co-founder and CEO of ClassDojo. "The first step is helping teachers, parents and students become a community, where everybody is able to communicate and share in the classroom experience. Doing that for classrooms in 90% of K-8 schools in the U.S. is a great milestone, but the bigger opportunity lies ahead: we now have the scale and ability to connect those classrooms with the best ideas, content and services, democratizing access to these for millions of teachers, parents and students. We have a lot more work to do, but we believe we can help deliver an incredible education experience, at huge scale, in every 'ClassDojo classroom' in the world."

ClassDojo is a communication app for the classroom, which teachers, parents and students use to share photos, videos, messages and moments throughout the school day. This year the company expanded into connecting classrooms with high-quality content and ideas, co-creating a series of videos on important social-emotional skills with Stanford and Harvard, which teachers and parents access on the platform. The videos on Growth Mindset and Empathy were created with Stanford's Project for Education Research that Scales and Harvard's Making Caring Common, and have been seen by 1 in 3 kids under the age of 14 in the U.S.

"I can't imagine my classroom without ClassDojo," said Julie Tessier, a third grade teacher in Wyoming. "I've been teaching for 25 years and I've never felt more connected to my parents. Being a teacher can feel lonely at times, but when you have a supportive community of 24 parents around you, it transforms your experience and makes it possible to accomplish so much more. I told every teacher (and my principal!) that they needed to join and last year we became a ClassDojo school by going schoolwide! We just love it."

Research has shown that parent engagement is twice as likely to influence a student's long-term success as socioeconomic status. Meanwhile, Pew reported that roughly two in five parents in two-income households have a tough time balancing their home lives and responsibilities at work, which is leading to stress.

"My husband and I have three kids and we also both work full time, which makes keeping up with what's happening at school, and everything else, quite the challenge," said Jennifer Tyler, a parent in California. "It's hard for a child to know what to say when you ask how their day was. Being able to prompt by asking about a picture or message that was shared means, instead of getting the 'nothing' answer we parents are so used to, we end up in meaningful conversations about all the fun things they learned. We've recently made ClassDojo and these discussions our new bedtime routine. It's such a great bonding moment!"

Schools in more than 180 countries have joined ClassDojo and the company was recently named one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Apps of the Year.